CHAPTER XIV

HOW THE LEOPARD WAS LOOSED

The burning thought of Jehane cut off, sixty feet below him, yet far as she could ever be, swept across Richard’s mind like a roaring wind, and ridded the room for wilder guests.  In came stalking Might-have-been and No-more, holding each by a shrinking shoulder the delicate maid of his first delight, Jehane, lissom in a thin gown; Jehane like a bud, with her long hair alight.  Her hair was loose, her face aflame; she was very young, very much to be kissed, fresh and tall—­Oh, God, the mere loveliness of her!  In came the scent of wet stubbles, the fresh salt air of Normandy, the pale gold of the shaws, the pale sky, the mild October sun.  He felt again the stoop, again the lift of her to his horse, again the stern ride together; saw again the Dark Tower, and all the love and sweet pleasure that they made.  The bride in the church turning her proud shy head, the bride in his arm, clinging as they flew, the bride in the tower, the crowned Countess, the nestling mate—­oh, impossibly lost!  Inconceivably put away!  Eternally his lover and bride!

Pity, if you can, this lonely heart, this king in chains, this hot Angevin, son of Henry, son of Geoffrey, son of Fulke, this Yea-and-Nay.  He who dared not look upon the city, lest, seeing, he should risk all to take it, had now looked upon the bride unaware, and could not touch her.  The fragrance of her, the sacred air in which a loved woman moves, had floated up to him:  his by all the laws of hell, in spite of heaven; but his no more.  Such nearness and such deprivation—­to see, to desire, and not to seize—­flung his wits abroad; from that hour his was a lost soul.  Hungry, empty-eyed, ranging, feverish, he lashed up and down his prison-room, with bare teeth gleaming, and desperate soft strides.  No thought he had but mere despair, no hope but the mere ravin of a beast.  He was across the room in four; he turned, he lunged back; at the wall he threw up his head, turned and lunged, turned and lunged again.  He was always at it, or rocking on his bed.  No hope, nor thought, nor reckoning had he, but to say Yea against God, Who said him Nay.

So, many times, had he stood, fatal enemy of himself.  His Yea would hold fast while none accepted it, his Nay while no one obeyed.  But the supple knees of men sickened him of his own decree.  ’These fools accept my bidding:  the bidding then is foolishness.’  So when Fate, so when God, underwrote his bill, Le Roy le veult, he scorned himself and the bill, and risked wide heaven to make either nought.